Some automated election systems currently in use at different worldwide locations have often been criticized or become the subject of controversy because of questions concerning their ability to provide an acceptable level of ease and convenience to the voting public, independently of other considerations concerning their reliability, security and auditability. Instead, occasionally some of said election systems have been hindered by frequent practical difficulties experienced by citizens during their actual voting act, said difficulties being related to the design of voting stations or data entry devices that do not offer a proper or convenient visual identification and easy manual selection of voting options available, or possibly due to confusion arising when voters are expected to perform operations that are more complex or cumbersome than anticipated, either manually or through mechanical or electronic means. Not infrequently, ballots have been designed and prepared with scant ergonomic provisions, possibly causing discomfort, nervousness and even frustration on the part of some voters who cannot easily find their preferred choices. At any rate, when difficulties have been experienced by a sufficiently significant proportion of the voting public at a given election, the consequences have been slowness in the voting process, and the occurrence of line delays, which in turn often have resulted in public dissatisfaction and even open protests.
Many of the traditional methods devised in the past have sometimes employed inadequate ballot designs, often in combination with machines or mechanical devices, requiring the voter to either actuate buttons, levers, or punching devices; or to write marks by hand on ballot sheets made of paper or other materials that must be subsequently scanned. Therefore, the process of voting has been hindered to a certain extent by a nontrivial potential for voter confusion, and also have been plagued by a potential for fraud. Many inventions in the past comprised unbelievably complicated designs, capable of frightening many an innocent voter, often unprepared to deal with impressive voting stations.
The interfaces that untrained voters must deal with for a first and single time cannot always be qualified as being user friendly, easy to understand, or straightforward to use, so interaction with such voting systems may pose a serious challenge to an average citizen, which must be solved in the course of a very short time as there is usually a time limit to cast a vote. It is a common experience to witness a voter undergoing a very stressing situation. Many a time, an election worker must step in and offer to help a voter accomplish his/her task, however not always such a gesture is welcome, as some voters may interpret it as an intrusion against their right to secrecy when actually voting. In other instances, the situation may be further complicated due to insufficient voter education, as instructions can be intricate or difficult due to the complexity involved, and hence confusing to voters. Sometimes when a voter meets the very instructions that are supposed to help or make easier the use of a voting station, the reaction is reluctance or even unwillingness to go through such complication.
Due to the above-mentioned physical and logical drawbacks related to some poorly designed mechanisms used to cast votes, which by themselves frequently may be a source of confusion or discomfort, there arises the problem of involuntary mistakes, whereby many a vote cast may not truly reflect the intentions of a voter; in other words, the voter was inadvertently led to an error which was not evident or could not be corrected prior to actual casting of the vote. In addition, there are frequent occurrences of invalid of incomplete votes where crucial options were omitted due to partial marking of a box or spot or due to incomplete pressing of button sequences. In all of these instances, the accuracy and integrity of the voting process is compromised.
In a given election, sufficiently numerous occurrences of annoying problems or errors may seriously affect the truthfulness, and hence distort the very results, of said election, giving rise to doubt, mistrust or dissatisfaction from the voting public, and can dangerously undermine confidence in a government and its institutions.
What a modern, efficient, secure and reliable computer-based electronic voting system needs in order to alleviate the above-mentioned drawbacks that may occur when actual votes are being cast, is a convenient, easy-to-understand and easy-to-use means of data entry suitable for use by the general voting public, incorporating modern, state-of-the-art devices such as special touch pads or touch screens, and whose programming has been designed for operation in combination with a sufficiently advanced electronic voting system.
Thus, the need has been identified for the availability of a convenient, effective, easy to explain, easy to understand, and easy to use data entry means for casting votes, having a sound, unequivocal design; laid out in a clear, logical geometric arrangement; that at each relevant step gives the voter instant feedback during the voting act; and allowing for unambiguous selection and verification of candidates or voting options. Such a data entry means would eliminate or at least minimize potential human error, promoting authenticity of the results; and would minimize the time spent by voters at the voting station(s), so that the overall satisfaction of the public would reach a higher level.
Further features aimed at enhancing functionality, accuracy and security, and also at assuring the voter's confidence in the voting system being used, include:
activation of the data entry device(s) upon a system command;
instant visual and audible feedback of data entry operations;
furnishing a way for visually checking each one of the options of the vote being cast, thus providing confirmation of the voter's choice(s);
providing a way to correct, change or delete choices made prior to actually casting a vote;
printing a paper slip upon casting of a vote, showing all its relevant information, as evidence that the voting system indeed has accepted his particular options as specified, and which the voter, after checking it, must deposit into a ballot box as a traceable record for the votes cast in a given location.
detecting any undue changes, substitutions, or alterations to the electoral configuration of the voting station's data entry devices, thus preventing any tampering attempts to same.
These are functions whose implementation is highly dependent upon the close relationship between the data entry device(s) and the electronic voting system employed, which necessarily must be designed to work together.
The voting data entry means of the present invention addresses such needs. It comprises either a single device or a plurality of state-of-the-art devices, that are made available to or are integrated into a voting station, such as a specially designed array of Electronic Pad units, or such as touch-screens of general or custom design, providing a voter interface having a clear display of voting information; furnishing an easy and intuitive mechanism for receiving voting selections made by each voter; and having sufficient built-in intelligence when supported by the accompanying electronic voting system, which may either be resident in a processor embedded within the voting station itself or may operate as an independent embodiment that is connected to the data entry device(s), in order to interact effectively with voters, administrative election officials and poll workers.
The input or data entry device(s), working together with the preferred electronic voting system, further comprises several ergonomic details aimed at enriching the voter's experience, providing visual and sonic aids as feedback and guidance during the voting session. The accompanying electronic voting system residing in the host, besides interacting with voters and other users by means of the data entry device(s) that are the object of the present invention, is in charge of opening and closing voting sessions; and is in charge of storing, representing, validating and displaying voting options corresponding to, and selected from, a database of one or more of a plurality of voting jurisdictions for the contests in effect. It is also in charge of recording and securely storing every one of the votes that are cast having all choices made by voters. Finally, it is in charge of a plurality of security, data integrity and audit procedures and provisions, in charge of printing a paper slip that enables voters to verify votes, in charge of printing the final voting tally for the individual voting station; and in charge of transmitting said votes and their tallies to the central computing facility for their inclusion in an election's overall computations.